110 j ... .., .,:'" , '\, . , -: t": ..:c o .' . . \. <'Ì ',t.. '> "> ^v >> , .,>\(<'.... n w .....-0 _I ..... g.. UJoolile \::. - "- ... .. aulc3ulli Fi ne active sportswear for men available at leading stores and shops throughout the country. For the store nearest you, contact: Paul Sullivan Sportswear, 51 Osgood St. Methuen, MA 01844 (617) 688-1076 t , 4 , Select golf tours to the great courses of Britain including Scotland. Carefully planned ightseeing for non-playing guests and First Class accomodations. For brochure and detaIls write or caB Ken Hdffilll, 617-834-7310 P.O Box 348 . Marshfleld, Ma 02050 · 'lENruRES IN G o KS ON T PE Listen to Full-Length , Readings of Best Sellers ',p on Cassettes While : Driving or Relaxing Classics/ FictIOn/Non-FictIOn .,., ' History/Travel/Adventure : r & $ 6 50 and up .......,. Rental Charge / ' Mail Order Delivery & Return Write or Phone for Free Catalog ' ------------------------- . Books on Tape, Inc., Dept N, P.O Box 71405 . Los Angeles CA 90071 Phone: (213) 627-5719 . . . . . : City, State, Zip . ------------------------- . . . . Name . . Street slept It was like a gigantic closet with a bed in It, filled with shabby old clothes-suits from the nineteen-twen- ties, racks and racks of them. Outside was a deck facing into the hillside-not onto the street-with stilts holding the whole shack up. An old icebox was out there, and also a big laundry tub with a garden hose in it. Next to that was a beehive, which I understand Piggott kept for both protection and honey. He seemed to have been nervous about burglars. He hid things all over the place. The Public Admin- istrator's people found bankbooks and other pa- pers stuck behind boards and between the founda- tion timbers. I found the treasure map and the cod- icils to the will buried un- der a stack of papers-not buried, as the map indicated. I was amazed that the map really said 'X marks the spot. ' We were all trying to figure out which tree was the sapota tree-there were so many fruit trees around. We dug a bit around some trees but didn't find anything. Later on, coins were found in the ground- jars of coins. The lists of securities we discovered showed that there was a substantial amount of money involved, t and this may be the real reason the Public Administrator's Office called me out there. We reached Piggott's stock- broker and got a more complete list of his stockholdings. The Public Ad- r.oinistrator put a hold on Piggott's mail for six months and picked up informa- tion on stocks and dividends through that. " By April 2, 1973, Secor had com- piled an inventory of Piggott's assets by checking with Piggott's stockbroker, Sutro & Company, in Los Angeles, and with the banks mentioned in the various papers left about. "This was the biggest estate I had ever come across for a hermit living in a shack," Secor said "I'd dealt with others like this, but they were people who lived in, say, a decent one-room apartment for sixty-five dollars a month and () then turned out to be millionaires." co With the stocks, including the missing Standard Oil of California shares, o () the cash on hand in the banks, and the J' estimated value of the real property, ;::: ..- the en tire estate was assessed then at ;: $285,560.04. I'- Suspecting that there were more as- sets buried about the property, Secor obtained a metal detector and searched the area. That procedure was useless, and SInce the shack was going to be razed anyway, as a nuisance liability, he LF called in a bonded contractor to dig up the lot with earthmoving machinery. The contractor, with Secor in attend- ance, started digging on April 17th, and the sight of such activity on a her- mit's property caused quite a stir among the people of El Sereno. "We asked the police from a loca] precinct to patrol the area," Secor said. "We had to keep telling the people that they couldn't come into the part where we were dig- ging, they were so inquisitive. It has al- ways been my suspicion that some of these people were going into the area before we were there to supervise it. That may explain the lost Standard Oil shares and other supposedly missing things. " '1 During the investiga- tion, Secor learned some more biographica] facts about Piggott. The Piggott family had moved from Michigan to Oregon when Charles was very young; they had lived in Portland and later in Columbia CIty, north of Portland. Piggott's father, Edward A. Piggott, died in 1929 in Columbia City. Piggott's mother, Lyd- ia Ann, died in 1931 in Los Angeles, at the age of seventy-four. She had owned a house and a tract of land in the Mon- tebello section of Los Angeles, which Piggott ultimately inherited and sold, according to a notation in his will. His brother, Bruce Leroy Piggott, owned property in Missoula, Montana, valued at $35,408.68. Bruce Leroy had died intestate in 1962 at the Grand Junction, Colorado, V ete rans Admin- istration Hospital, having been declared incompetent fourteen years before his death. D. A. Paddock, who had been Bruce Le roy's guardian an d la wye r, got in touch with Charles Piggott in 1964 and arranged for him to inherit the brother's estate as the sole sur- vivor. Paddock retired to Palm Springs in 1964, and that was how he hap- pened to meet with Piggott ln Los Angeles, as Piggott described so omi- nously in his will. There had apparent- ly been a serious falling-out between the brothers, who did not see each other for many years. Piggott was still bitter abou t this, in spite of his unexpected inheritance, and this may have account- ed for his leeriness of Paddock and anything to do with his brother. Another piece of information that Secor turned up was a document from the office of a registrar of voters in British Columbia, dated December 14, 1917. Piggott had registered to vote in the Canadian elections, thus aban- doning his American citizenship for a